Sunday

I been playing in one keeper league for a number of years and have
learned some painful lessons along the way with regards to which players to
keep on my team (eg. designate as keepers). My team has suffered mightily
when I kept a running back that was past his prime, or a wide-out that was a
one year wonder, or a quarterback that couldn't stay healthy.

In the hopes of saving you all from experiencing some of the same
growing pains, I have posited a checklist of things to think about when
deciding which players to retain and which ones to drop. My guides are
designed to fit my 12-team, three keeper, auction league; however, I think most
of them will work for any type of keeper league. I have listed them
below. As always, these are my feelings/beliefs, they may not work for your team/league. Either way, I would love to know what you think. Let me know via the response section.

1) How many good fantasy years does an athlete have remaining?

2) Will this individual continue to perform? Is he reliable?

3) Has he reached his potential?

4) Is he injury prone (or prone to getting into off the field issues)?

5) Are there any factors, eg. for a QB-->his offensive line has
improved, that will help the player do better this year than last year?

6) How much will it cost to repurchase this player in the auction if I
let him go?

Using that set of criteria, I kept Antonio Brown (WR), Beanie Wells
(RB), and Ben Roethlisberger (QB). My final cuts (last two I dropped)
were Matt Stafford and Michael Bush.

Monday

As many of you know, I enjoy playing fantasy football. Well, it's (almost) that time of the year again. I have already started prepping in the hopes that I can repeat last year's performance in which I performed well in all four of my fantasy football leagues while winning two of them. With that said, I came across an article by Dan Clasgens in Get Sports Info. that draws some correlations between poker strategies and fantasy football strategies.

In short, Clasgens states that, like in poker, it is vitally important for fantasy football players to know something about their competitors' personalities, likes, etc. He mainly focuses the conversation on trading strategies, eg. does the player show weakness in bargaining and how can you take advantage of it. He doesn't dwell on the correlation between scouting out other player tendencies and draft strategy. Which has me wondering....

Do most players have tendencies? In other words, will Player X consistently pick a RB in the first round and a QB in the second round year after year? Does Player Y provide any clues (via what he/she says, does, acts) that indicate beforehand what type of player they will choose in a particular round? Are these cues easy to pick-up? Are they consistent tells? Do the tells remain the same regardless of the player (eg. a tendency to focus on RB's means that the player actually likes QB's)?

If we were still living in the pen and paper era, many of these questions would go unanswered. I mean, who actually keeps paper copies of the drafts. However, in some leagues, one can find years worth of drafts archived online. If you play with the same people year after year, and the draft materials are online, then maybe you could start to answer these questions...

Even if players do have tendencies, especially ones that can be picked up from reviewing their old drafts (as opposed to trying to garner clues from tells), is this information useful to a fantasy player? I think it might be...Much like chess, checkers, or some other strategy game, it pays to be able to think several moves ahead. If you know how your competitors will draft, it might help you to achieve this feat (by crafting better draft scenarios).

At the same time, it might not help at all...Something to think about anyway.

Sunday

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I might not be able to read other blogs or create any new blog posts (of my own) for a few days. The storm that tore through Virginia and West Virginia (among other states) a couple of days ago knocked out my power. I might not get electricity back until the weekend. In the meantime, I will likely have very few opportunities to get online.